Belgian Prime Minister announces resignation

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has announced his resignation. In the dispute over the UN migration pact, Michels four-party coalition is broken. Then Michel last formed a minority government.

The Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel wants to resign.

Opposition parties had previously announced that they wanted to express mistrust in the minority government.

The background is a government crisis that has lasted for ten days.

DBelgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has announced his resignation. He would immediately go to the king, said Michel on Tuesday evening in Parliament in Brussels. Shortly before, the Social Democrats, with the support of the Greens, submitted a motion of no confidence in parliament. With him, Michel should be asked to make policy changes within 48 hours.

After the resignation announcement King Philippe will probably only decide on Wednesday on the corresponding request. Before that, the monarch wants to meet after media reports in the course of the day only with the various party leaders to deliberations to explore the political possibilities. In Belgium, since a new parliament will be elected in May 2019 anyway, theoretically the king could again commission Michel to form a government for the next five months.

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The background of the announced resignation is a government crisis that has lasted for ten days. The nationalist regional party N-VA from the Flemish-speaking north of the country had left the government one and a half weeks ago, because the frank-franc liberal Michel, 42, wanted to travel to Marrakech to approve the UN migration pact.

Michel then went on with a minority government. However, his liberal reform movement (Mouvement Réformateur / MR), together with the Flemish Liberals Open VLD and the Christian Democrats (CD & V), had only 52 of the 150 parliamentary seats. An early election rejected Michel.

The UN Migration Pact was adopted last Monday by delegations from more than 150 countries at a conference in Moroccan Marrakech. In it, global guidelines for international migration policy are agreed for the first time. In Germany, the AfD had warned of a loss of national sovereignty and an "acceleration and multiplication of immigration". At the same time, the UN member states have developed a Global Pact for Refugees.